Rahul’s Bahrain visit last resort of a failed leader, says BJP

Barely a couple of weeks into its poll victories in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, the ruling BJP was back to targeting Congress president Rahul Gandhi over his ongoing visit to Bahrain.
The BJP, which loses no opportunity to mock at and criticise Gandhi, sought to highlight the Congress defeats in the two recent state elections, despite the Congress improving upon its past tally in Gujarat, under the leadership of the new party president.

Gandhi on Monday had called on Bahrain’s Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa. This was followed by his meeting with Prince Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa at Al Wadi Palace. He gifted him books written by Jawaharlal Nehru while in prison, besides The Discovery of India. Gandhi later addressed a gathering of NRIs.

Advertisement

BJP leader and spokesman Sambit Patra, however, termed Gandhi’s visit to Bahrain as “the last resort of a failed leader”
“Rahul Gandhi’s political career in India has been jeopardised; he is going abroad and demeaning India. His conspiracies are out in the open, and the visit is the last resort of a failed leader,” Patra said.

He also sought to highlight that the main fight between the ruling BJP and Opposition Congress was over development and sectoral politics respectively. “While the BJP focuses on reforms, Rahul Gandhi believes in deforming politics. It is the politics of development versus the politics of division practiced by the Congress Party,” the BJP national spokesman said.

Joining Patra’s criticism of Rahul Gandhi’s Bahrain visit, senior BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy alleged that it had been undertaken “possibly for money laundering.”

“These days a lot of leaders are going to Bahrain instead of Dubai, since the latter has stringent surveillance. If he (Rahul Gandhi) felt there was a serious problem in India, he should have stayed back to solve it, not gone to Bahrain,” Swamy said.